Women

Sidelines

The Oscar nominations are in and - who'd have thought it? - it's another mixed year for women. Great news that the superlative Cate Blanchett has snagged two acting nominations, and equally exciting to see the Best Original Screenplay category dominated - just - by women writers (who penned three of the five nominated films).

We're still no closer to seeing a woman win the plum award of Best Director though. Only three women have been nominated for it in all of Oscar history (out of a total of more than 400 nominations in the category) and not a single woman gets the nod this year. The pace of progress seems to be painfully slow. And all the more disappointing given the beautiful debut feature, Away From Her, directed by Sarah Polley last year ...

Cruel Wintour

Anna Wintour has come out fighting after Hillary Clinton backed out of a US Vogue cover shoot, apparently because she didn't want to seem too feminine. "The notion that a contemporary woman must look mannish in order to be taken seriously as a seeker of power is frankly dismaying," Wintour writes, before noting, mind-bogglingly, "This is America, not Saudi Arabia." I, for one, really hope this spat ends here. After all, I know the media loves a good "catfight", but they do get passe awfully fast, don't they Anna?

This film bites

Date movie alert! Yes, it's Teeth, which has been well-received by festival audiences worldwide. No news yet on a UK release, but given its subject matter - a woman finds she has teeth in her vagina - it's surely one for the Valentine's Day crowd ...